A Rested Development: Tortoise Vs. Hare

Picture it: someone takes a saw. They cut out your old kneecap and replace it with a ball bearing joint. Slow and steady. This proved more agonizing than I’d ever imagined six months ago. I originally envisioned some minor discomfort while recuperating. I pictured myself surrounded by fragrant flowers. Sipping lattes in bed. I’d forge through my stack of books. Undertake mindless craft projects. Instead I received a rested development: tortoise vs. the hare. In a manner of speaking.

Yeah, that didn’t happen. Instead, there were midnight crying jags, grueling exercises and med management exercises. Fortunately, my future included a rested development: Slow and steady wins the race.

Life is full of surprises all right. You’ve heard the expression “life is always darkest before the dawn.” Initially, I felt like the old horse waiting to be shot and put out of its misery. But an unexpected gift arrived. A visitor popped in from 1,200 miles away.

Five days after the procedure, I remember that chit chat wasn’t my top priority. But that afternoon, a sweet pastor friend prayed over me. He petitioned for me to “receive things on my back” from God.

The moment I heard those words it was as if someone lit a candle in my darkness. Long after he left, the amazing truth he spoke into me reverberated in my mind. That next morning, journal in hand, instead of writing about pain, I prayed about what God intended me to receive.

The gratitude section of the journal spilled into the margins and forced myself to be thankful. Immediately, my attitude changed. Instead of closing in on the agony, growth and focus on potential lessons shaped my goals.

My first epiphany:  an observation. My in-home physical therapist watched me power walk. He sighed. Shook his head. He saw through my people pleasing. He called me out on my overachieving. Rapid movement proves to be an outward sign of my inward arrogance.

“Do you know you hurry in everything you do,” he said to me. “Going somewhere? What’s the urgency?” Ouch. He was right on the money.

Pride is an insidious adversary. I like to think of myself as a humble person. But it really isn’t so. I’m so proud in my humility. So above the doctor’s advice. And there you have it. The Enemy loves to either stagnate growth or dupe you into thinking you don’t need any. He wants us to compartmentalize our pride. Then we can’t recognize or acknowledge it. God may love you  “just the way you are,” as Billy Joel might sing.

Satan wants to strip away who we really are to make us pawns in his schemes. Ineffectiveness is the goal. He knows God can’t really use arrogant people. “God gives grace to the humble but opposes the proud,” as we learn in Psalm 138:6.

Before the surgery I was stagnated. In two decades of caring for my special needs son, things were done in a hurry. Five minutes to pack for a couple’s trip so he wouldn’t see the luggage. Hurry outside for the taxi so he wouldn’t see us go. Eat dinner and drink your soda before he wants yours, too. But he hadn’t lived with us in two years. The old  course was never altered. Habits apparently die hard. A reset was long overdue.

I wish I could tell you my “shift” happened on a dime. It didn’t. It will take more than a few months to undo twenty years of habitual rushing. I’m still a work in progress. Spending more time with God proved a critical first step each and every morning.

I try not to hurry though what He has for me to do each day. I’ve built in more listening time and less time blowing through my agenda for time with Him. So that He can do the talking and directing. Sitting still for His cues doesn’t come naturally. And hearing everything God has to say to me has been hard and often devastatingly humbling. In the most authentic sense of the word.

I’ve literally slowed my pace in all tasks. Walking is more like strolling now. When I’m stuck in traffic, I don’t try to bob and weave or jockey for position. I’m eating with increased intention, slowing to a rhythm more appropriate to the activity at hand. In conversation, I’m improving my listening skills.

More than ever, learning that my next potential epiphany is dependent on my complete attention has been critical. That requires a completely open mind. I need a willing spirit, an undivided heart. I can’t find these things on a fast food menu, devour them in minutes and expect to walk away restored. It will take time, patience and dedication.

I can’t receive what God intends if I don’t fully welcome His gifts. I’m determined to be more eager to ruminate over His action items. “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know,” God tells Jeremiah as recorded in chapter 33 verse 3.

He’s telling us this, too. We can long for wisdom but we must wait for His timing to receive His revelations. Only then will our epiphanies come. Not all of these epiphanies will result in abounding joy. But take heart. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5.

Join me in cultivating a malleable heart. Rethink your pace and your route. Allow for divine detours. The Potter will shape our clay if and when the clay surrenders to the process. Our pots may be cracked until the day they are restored in the New Jerusalem. But you will never know what valuable change can be made in your life if you aren’t fully open to it. It may be around the corner but perhaps slightly out of view.

Stay open to new ideas or paths. Let Jesus take the wheel. Submit to a slower pace. Only then will we gain a perspective we can’t receive any other way. Partner along with me. Let’s trust the Alpha and the Omega to direct our steps as He sees fit. Our clay will be fashioned in the image He intends in light of His eternal perspective. However flawed the clay, however imperfect the vessel, we can still let him do the molding in His inimitable image. We can run and even win “the race marked out for us.”